BBC ON THIS DAY | 14 | 1979: Disgraced ex-MP released from jail 1979: Disgraced ex-MP released from jail John Stonehouse, the former government minister who faked his own death, has been freed from prison. Mr Stonehouse was led out of jail an hour before other prisoners due for release on Tuesday morning. He was allowed to leave earlier on health grounds as he is still recovering from open heart surgery and has had three heart attacks during his time in prison. Mr Stonehouse was released on bail after serving three years of a seven-year term for theft, fraud and deception. The charges related to a string of failed fraudulent businesses set up by the ex-Walsall MP before his disappearance in 1974. He stood trial in 1976 after being arrested in Australia. No family reunion Last year his first application for parole was turned down. Several suitcases and boxes containing Mr Stonehouse's personal possessions and documents were loaded into a car which arrived to collect him at dawn. But there was no family reunion outside the prison gates. Both his mother and his former secretary, Sheila Buckley, who was with him when he was arrested in Australia, stayed away.

Mr Stonehouse sprinted towards the waiting car with his head covered by a jacket and hid from photographers by laying down on the back seat. It is believed Mr Stonehouse plans to write a book about his experiences. The real life Reggie Perrin: MP John Stonehouse who faked his own death forty years ago | Politics | News | Daily Express POLITICS MP John Stonehouse was the real life Reggie Perrin Forty years ago the MP John Stonehouse was arrested on the other side of the world after faking his own death to begin a new life with his mistress. 00:01, Mon, Dec 22, 2014 REX John Stonehouse in 1975, a year after his ‘death' At first the heap of clothes by the water’s edge on a Miami beach appeared to indicate a personal tragedy, perhaps a suicide, a drowning or even a killing by sharks. Florida police quickly discovered that the abandoned garments belonged to the colourful, charismatic Labour ex-Cabinet Minister John Stonehouse, who had once been tipped as a future party leader.

When the news of Stonehouse’s ostensible death was announced in November 1974, despite the absence of a body, there was a profound sense of shock around Westminster. A minute’s silence was held in the chamber of the House of Commons and a string of flattering obituaries appeared in the press. But the MP’s disappearance was nothing like what it seemed. Under suspicion because of his dodgy, debt-riddled business dealings and his treacherous links to the Soviet bloc, Stonehouse had actually faked his own death, then fled to Australia where he planned to start a new life with his mistress and former Commons secretary Sheila Buckley. However the attempt to escape his debts, his past and his marriage did not last long. On Christmas Eve, just 34 days after he had apparently died, he and Buckley were arrested in Melbourne, the police having been tipped off by shrewd bank staff who noticed that Stonehouse was using two different names to deposit large amounts of cash. Initially the Melbourne police thought they were on the trail of Lord Lucan, the suave aristocrat who had vanished without a trace also in November that year after allegedly murdering the family nanny.

Indeed Lucan and Stonehouse had some superficial similarities, including their polished manners and dark good looks. The Lucan connection was just another dramatic element in this extraordinary saga. The 1970s were full of bizarre political scandals, such as the trial of Jeremy Thorpe for conspiracy to murder. But few were more sensational than the downfall of Stonehouse. It had all the ingredients of a gripping drama, from epic greed to dangerous adultery, from corruption in the developing world to espionage in Communist Eastern Europe. It is exactly 40 years ago this week since Stonehouse was arrested in Melbourne. His reemergence sparked a firestorm of media interest. The Daily Express put no fewer than 22 reporters on the story, including the paper’s cricket correspondent, while the News Of The World offered him £15,000 for his story. Public fascination was further stoked a few months later with the publication of the novel The Death Of Reggie Perrin by David Nobbs, later turned into a hugely popular comedy series starring Leonard Rossiter. The fictional Perrin, just like Stonehouse, was eager to start a new life under a different identity. He faked his own demise by leaving his clothes on a beach.

It is a myth, however, that Stonehouse was the inspiration for this comic creation. In fact Nobbs had completed the manuscript five months before the MP’s disappearance. In the comedy Reggie Perrin simply wanted to be free of his mundane existence as a middle manager in the dessert industry, whereas the motivation for Stonehouse was much darker. He was trying to evade the consequences of his corrupt, disloyal and criminal behaviour. At the root of Stonehouse’s ruin lay his obsession with power and wealth. Not one to be overburdened by modesty, he told friends his two ambitions in life were to become a millionaire and be prime minister. It is a myth, however, that Stonehouse was the inspiration for this comic creation At one stage both those goals seemed to be in his grasp. Born in 1925 into a Labour family from Southampton, he worked as an economist before being elected as the MP for Wednesbury, aged just 32. His ascent was rapid, reaching the Cabinet in 1968 as postmaster-general where he was responsible for the introduction of first and second class stamps.

Throughout his rise up the political ladder he was strongly supported by his wife Barbara, whom he had married when he was just 23. But storm clouds were gathering over his career. Through a “honey trap” operation during a visit to Czechoslovakia in the late 1950s, Stonehouse had been persuaded to work for Czech military intelligence on a retainer of £500-a-year, about a third of his parliamentary salary. This treacherous arrangement was uncovered by US intelligence in 1969 when Czech defector Jose Frolik said he was “90 per cent sure” Stonehouse was an agent for the Communist bloc. The British, however, dismissed such claims and no action was taken, though he was badly tainted by the charges. By the early 1970s Stonehouse was also in deep trouble. Having lost his ministerial position when Labour were defeated in the 1970 General Election, he stepped up his efforts to make his fortune through a string of business initiatives, among them a development bank in Bangladesh. But the global economic crisis of 1973, triggered by the rise in oil prices, plunged his finances into meltdown.

By 1974 the debts of his crumbling business empire of 24 companies totalled more than £800,000 [about £10million in today’s money] and he was under investigation by the Government for fraud. Adding to the maelstrom was the threat to his marriage from his affair with Sheila Buckley, who had become a director of many of his firms. Stonehouse could see only one way out. As part of his plan for a new life he developed two bogus identities using the names of dead constituents, Joe Markham and Clive Muldoon, a trick he learnt from Frederick Forsyth’s thriller The Day Of The Jackal. But it was this that alerted the bank tellers in Melbourne and ultimately brought about his arrest. Even then Stonehouse showed remarkable chutzpah, claiming to be the victim of a political conspiracy and demanding asylum in various parts of the globe. He fought a six-month battle to avoid extradition to Britain and, when he was finally brought back, he refused to resign his seat in Parliament, much to the fury of the Labour party. Stonehouse then compounded the aggravation by joining the obscure English National Party, becoming the organisation’s only MP for a brief spell.

Typically he conducted his own defence at his marathon Old Bailey trial in 1976, maintaining that his conduct had been the result “of a brainstorm or mental breakdown”. Clinging to the theme of psychological distress, he even said that the adoption of his two aliases were a sign of his split personality. None of this washed with the jury. Convicted on 18 counts of theft, fraud and deception he was sentenced to seven years in jail. Buckley, his mistress, was given a two-year suspended term. Having suffered a series of heart attacks in jail, he was released on health grounds in 1979. A year later Mrs Thatcher’s government received confirmation from another Czech defector that Stonehouse had been a spy but no prosecution was mounted because this evidence could not be used in court. Stonehouse spent his last years in a twilight existence. Having divorced Barbara, he married Buckley in 1981 and tried to forge a new career as a writer, but with little success. He died from another heart attack in 1988 at the age of 62. A life that had once promised so much had ended in ignominy.

Related articles British political scandal: The man who faked his death | The Independent UK Politics British political scandal: The man who faked his death Newly released government papers tell the behind-the-scenes story of one of the most bizarre episodes in British politics. Cahal Milmo investigates the John Stonehouse affair Thursday 29 December 2005 00:00 BST Click to follow Indy Politics The call to Melbourne police came shortly before Christmas Eve in 1974. Interpol had reason to believe Lord Lucan was in Australia and Melbourne's finest thought they had their man. Several days earlier, detectives in the Australian city had been alerted to the presence of a handsome, well-spoken but furtive Englishman who was shuttling large amounts of money into a bank account from abroad. When police pounced on their target's luxury flat on Christmas Eve, what they found was not Lord Lucan but John Stonehouse, a 48-year-old British MP and former Labour minister, whose tale was just as captivating as that of the missing peer - and had unsettling implications for the British government.

Previously unseen documents released today at the National Archives in Kew, west London, cast new light on the extraordinary saga of a man who wanted to be prime minister but ended up faking his own death, stealing the identity of a dead constituent and became the subject of a diplomatic wrangle between London and Sydney. The papers, previously kept secret under the 30-year rule, reveal how British diplomats working for Harold Wilson's Labour government obtained a confidential psychiatric report on Stonehouse as he fought extradition on fraud charges. The mystery had started on a Florida beach some 10,000 miles from Melbourne, 34 days before Stonehouse's accidental discovery by detectives looking for Lord Lucan. A pile of clothing belonging to the MP was found on a Miami waterfront after he had supposedly entered the water for a swim. Despite the absence of a corpse and FBI suspicions that the British politician, a former minister of aviation whose heavily indebted business empire stretched to 23 separate companies, had been the victim of a Mafia hit, it was rapidly accepted that Stonehouse had committed suicide. For Wilson's government, struggling to cope with an economy heading for meltdown as it entered 1975, there were more pressing matters to deal with.

In the House of Commons, a ceremonial silence was held to mark the passing of the Honourable Member for Walsall North. The idea that Stonehouse had "done a Reggie Perrin", leaving his wardrobe on a beach for a new life in the manner of the as yet unbroadcast comedy starring Leonard Rossiter, did not attract much attention in Whitehall. With inflation poised to hit 26 per cent, unemployment heading for a 30-year high and near-expulsion from the IMF looming, the Labour Party had little appetite for a major political scandal. But that is precisely what it got when Stonehouse, 48, was detained for entering Australia on a false passport in the name of Joseph Markham, a dead constituent, and masquerading as Clive Mildoon, another deceased constituent. Stonehouse, who was discovered in Melbourne with his attractive long-term mistress and former secretary, Sheila Buckley, immediately began a campaign against extradition to Britain to face fraud charges arising from his business dealings, which left a fund he set up to help Bangladeshi victims of a hurricane with £600,000 missing from its accounts.

His wife of 24 years, Barbara, was initially elated at the news of her husband's return from the dead and flew out to Australia for an emotional reunion - only to learn of Sheila Buckley's existence and her husband's betrayal. According to the new documents, the Black Country politician who fled to Australia via Hawaii, Singapore and Malaysia, rapidly set about constructing a defence, claiming he had been facing blackmail from South African business partners and suffered a "brainstorm" in Miami. In a memo sent to the Foreign Office and seen by Wilson in Downing Street, Stonehouse said: "My wish was to be released from the incredible pressures being put on me, particularly in my business activities and various attempts at blackmail. I considered, clearly wrongly, that the best action I could take was to create a new identity and attempt to live a new life away from these pressures. I suppose this can be summed up as a brainstorm or a mental breakdown." The case was manna from heaven for Fleet Street, which engaged in a mass scramble for a scoop. The Daily Express put 22 reporters on the story, including its cricket correspondent.

The News of the World dispatched nine journalists along with £15,000 in cash to buy Stonehouse's story and The Times asked its Sydney-based opera writer to get on the trail of the MP. But the British government was just as keen as the press to get to the bottom of Stonehouse's motivation and likely next moves as he attempted to avoid extradition, trial and an eventual seven-year prison sentence. By the time the time he stepped down as an MP in 1976, Stonehouse held the balance of power in Britain - his resignation put the Labour government, then headed by James Callaghan, in a minority with 315 seats compared to the 316 held by opposition parties. The papers show that British diplomats in Sydney obtained a copy of a psychiatric report commissioned by Stonehouse and submitted to the Australian authorities to support his claim that he had suffered a mental breakdown.

A summary of the profile was sent to Mr Callaghan in 1975, when he was still Foreign Secretary, together with the following warning from an unnamed official: "It is clearly important that Mr Stonehouse should not find out that we have been given an account of the contents of this report." The summary confirmed the MP's claims that it was a form of breakdown that had provoked his decision to adopt a new identity. But it also revealed that Stonehouse was a Jekyll and Hyde character who had been posing as Joseph Markham for months prior to his disappearance to provide relief from being the MP he had come to hate. The summary stated: "He believed he was ruined and evolved a bizarre scheme in 1974 to adopt a new identity. He spent short periods posing as Mr Markham, a private and 'honest' individual, which apparently led to reduced tension. He began to dislike the personality of Stonehouse and therefore devised his plan to escape." Arrest as a mistaken Lord Lucan represented the nadir of a dramatic fall for Stonehouse, the precocious son of two West Midlands Labour and Co-Operative Society activists who was only 31 when he entered the House of Commons.

He was appointed Minister of Aviation in Harold Wilson's first government at the age of 38 and then became postmaster-general. As a young man, Stonehouse displayed a radical zeal, railing against colonialism and exploitation of the developing world. In 1959, he was expelled from Rhodesia for a speech in which he urged blacks to "lift your heads high and behave as though the country belongs to you". His efforts to highlight the independence cause of Bangladesh led to an offer of citizenship when the new state was declared in 1971. Unfettered by modesty, Stonehouse declared to colleagues that his life plan was straightforward: become a millionaire and then prime minister. But despite being tipped for Cabinet, the MP's political fortunes rapidly waned. After Labour's defeat in 1970, Wilson refused to appoint Stonehouse to any shadow ministerial post and the MP dedicated himself instead to a catalogue of disastrous business ventures. By the time of his vanishing act in Florida in November 1974, Stonehouse had had debts of more than £800,000 after an attempt to set up a new investment bank in Bangladesh.

He had also taken out a £170,000 insurance policy on his own life. In Whitehall, the temptation to reduce the MP's difficulties to a lifetime of psychological flaws proved difficult to resist. The summary of the psychiatrist's report said: "The psychiatrist's opinion was that, as a child, Mr Stonehouse was anxious and withdrawn, though undoubtedly gifted. He achieved success as a young adult but at the expense of personal strain and repression of his emotional needs and his ability to communicate his true feelings. "In middle age, stresses in his career led to a degree of disillusionment with himself. Mr Stonehouse suffered significant but 'atypical depression'. He thought of suicide but, deciding this was not the answer, devised a 'suicide equivalent' - his disappearance from a beach in Miami." The documents offer little evidence of just how the leaked psychiatric report was used by Downing Street or the Foreign Office. The government dossier includes a rambling 18-page submission sent by Stonehouse to the Queen in his role as a privy councillor, protesting his innocence with a note from one official advising that it be ignored.

Despite initial reluctance to deport Stonehouse, the Australian government eventually relented to British demands that the MP face criminal charges in Britain and he was extradited in June 1975. The papers detail a series of ranting memos sent by Stonehouse to senior Labour Party figures insisting he is the victim of wide-ranging conspiracy. They include a polemic against the press with uncanny echoes of the complaints of another politician who ultimately ended up in prison, former Conservative minister Jonathan Aitken. In a letter to the then Leader of the Commons, Ted Short, Stonehouse blamed Fleet Street for his demise, writing: "Press freedom is a false god to worship: it has become a weapon in the hands of callow, cynical and completely irresponsible men who delight in undermining and destroying active people in politics and business who are the constructive and positive elements in society.

"The negativism of much contemporary journalism is a cancer in the body politic and is gradually eating away at the vitals of British democracy." The MP's trial on 18 charges of theft, forgery and conspiracy to commit insurance fraud lasted 68 days in 1976 and led to Stonehouse resigning from the Commons in August that year, forcing James Callaghan to form the Liberal-Labour pact to stay in power until Margaret Thatcher's general election victory in 1979. Suffering increasingly from a heart condition, Stonehouse served three years of his seven-year sentence before being released from prison early on grounds of health. He married Sheila Buckley and set about a new career writing books, including an autobiography entitled Death of an Idealist. He died in 1988 from a heart attack at the age of 62. The new documents suggest that Stonehouse had been broken by his experience in jail.

A letter from his brother, William, to the Home Secretary, Merlyn Rees, complained about the conditions in Blundeston Prison, said: "Now it is a sad fact that John is put to cleaning out the lavatories - a job considered 'light duties' - and he carries out these tasks with his usual thoroughness no doubt. "I am distressed that after over 30 years of 18 hours daily toil on behalf of the Labour Party, the Government and the country, John has so little support and aid in his time of need." History shows the letter went unanswered. Did Stonehouse inspire Reginald Perrin - or vice versa? When the first Reginald Perrin novel appeared in 1975, readers would have been forgiven for thinking the author had been inspired by real-life events. David Nobbs' tale of Mr Perrin, a troubled sales executive at Sunshine Desserts who stripped off his clothing on a beach in Dorset and faked his own demise, bore an uncanny resemblance to the saga of John Stonehouse. The strange behaviour of the Labour MP on a beach in Florida in November 1974 had gained such worldwide publicity that claiming ignorance would not have been a valid explanation.

But Nobbs had every reason to assert that his fiction had nothing to do with Stonehouse's fall from public grace. He had completed his first Perrin novel in June 1974, some five months before the MP had travelled to Miami. Similarly, Stonehouse cannot be accused of seeking inspiration from the books. They were published long after his arrest in Australia and attempts to seek asylum in Sweden and Mauritius before being extradited back to Britain to face fraud charges. Was Labour minister John Stonehouse, the real Reggie Perrin, a spy? | Daily Mail Online comments MI5 papers reveal Stonehouse was spared espionage charges by Margaret Thatcher. So what does the wife he betrayed have to say? He was a Labour minister with two ambitions: to be a millionaire and to become Prime ­Minister, in that order. John Stonehouse achieved neither. Instead, he became a crook and a spy for the Soviet Bloc. And the story of how, to escape justice in 1974, the MP faked his own suicide by leaving a pile of clothes at the water’s edge in Miami is one of the most extraordinary episodes in British political history.

Two women played key roles in this story, which mirrored the TV comedy The Fall And Rise Of Reggie Perrin. Charmer: John Stonehouse - who tried to fake his own death in 1974 - and the mistress who became his second wife, Sheila Buckley, after he emerged from a seven-year prison sentence for fraud One is his then wife, the redoubtable Barbara, who subsequently divorced him after 26 years, and now, aged 79, lives with her second ­husband in Wiltshire. The other is his then Commons secretary and mistress, the beautiful, dark-haired Sheila Buckley, who married him after he emerged from a seven-year prison sentence for fraud and who now, aged 63, lives quietly with their son James in Hampshire. Stonehouse himself died in 1988, aged just 62. But now, in an unexpected twist to the saga, a third woman has emerged: Margaret Thatcher. With the Left’s obsessive belief that there is virtually no end to the Iron Lady’s evil, the Guardian newspaper has proclaimed that in 1980, the then Prime Minister ‘agreed to a cover-up’ over allegations that Stonehouse was a spy.

Downing Street papers made public under the 30-year rule describe a meeting that Mrs Thatcher held on October 6, 1980, with Home Secretary Willie Whitelaw and Attorney-­General Sir Michael Havers. He wanted to be a millionaire then Prime Minister A Czech defector had apparently ‘confirmed’ information from an ­earlier Czech source that Stonehouse had spied for Czechoslovakia while he was a backbencher, and also when serving as a minister in Harold Wilson’s government. In fact, far from being a cover-up, the truth is that Mrs Thatcher was advised that neither source had ­provided information that could be used as evidence. And on that basis, she agreed he could not be prosecuted for espionage. Not that this means Stonehouse was innocent — far from it. He had first been exposed as a spy for the then communist country by a Czech defector in 1969, when he was Postmaster General. According to the secret service’s official history ­published in 2009, Stonehouse was interrogated by MI5 but its officials were unable to break him.

Harold Wilson was kept fully informed, as was his successor as prime minister James Callaghan, and, of course, Edward Heath, who was Conservative prime minister from 1970 to 1974. Taken in: Stonehouse made Sheila a director of his companies - and signed legal papers without realising their ­significance. She was convicted on five charges connected with his frauds and received a two-year suspended sentence Not a word about their suspicions and fears emerged in public, and Stonehouse didn’t give up his ­Walsall North seat until 1976, three weeks before his trial on charges including fraud and forgery. Yet despite three other prime ­ministers being involved in the case, only Lady Thatcher, now 86 and rather infirm, has been the victim of a smear campaign for agreeing to a ‘cover-up’, and all that such a ­decision implies. What’s more, no one seems able to explain how the exposure of a former aviation minister and Postmaster General in a LABOUR government could possibly have harmed a Tory administration that had been in power for just over a year.

His was treachery for the grubbiest of motives - cash Indeed, the previous year, soon after taking office, Margaret Thatcher had had no hesitation in exposing as a Soviet spy Anthony Blunt, the gauntly ethereal Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures, who was on close terms with senior members of the Royal Family. As Sir Bernard Ingham, Lady Thatcher’s private secretary during the Downing Street years, said ­yesterday: ‘It must be blindingly obvious, even to the Guardian, that there’s not much point in exposing and prosecuting someone if there’s not enough evidence to prove it.’ But if there is exasperation among Lady Thatcher’s friends that she has been unfairly maligned over the Stonehouse affair, there is sheer astonishment from Stonehouse’s discarded wife, Barbara, that he was considered a spy. Blame Thatcher? The Guardian newspaper has proclaimed that in 1980, the then Prime Minister 'agreed to a cover-up' over allegations that Stonehouse was a spy For years, she was the archetypal Westminster wife, at her husband’s side through thick and thin, mother of his three children and his greatest supporter and encourager.

But after her husband vanished on a business trip to Miami Beach on November 20, 1974, she thought he must certainly be dead. Just over a month later, when he turned up in Australia (incidentally, the police thought the handsome and charismatic man they’d taken into custody was the missing Lord Lucan), she instantly flew Down Under to bring him home — only to find that his former secretary, Sheila Buckley (whose affair with Stonehouse she knew nothing about), was with him. An Australian tabloid headline shrieked in cricketing ­parlance: ­‘Mistress in. Clean bowls wife.’ Barbara Stonehouse hit back: ‘I’m still batting, actually.’ But the game was all but over. ­Barbara quickly saw that she had lost her husband to his secretary, 20 years his junior, who for her own part insisted: ‘I’m no scarlet woman.’ Barbara divorced Stonehouse while he was still in prison and later married public relations consultant Dennis Flexney-Briscoe. Her years as a ‘Westminster wife’ were barely a memory yesterday. ‘I divorced myself from that other life many years ago,’ she sighed.

Who can blame her after the way the philandering Stonehouse cheated on her and faked his own death. She has much to despise her late ex-husband for; and yet, loyally, she still finds it hard to accept that he was a spy for the Soviet regime. Behind bars: John Stonehouse seen here by BBC cameras in prison in 1976 ‘I can tell you John was very anti-Communist,’ she says emphatically. ‘He fought tooth and nail when they attempted to take over the Co-op.’ This was the left-wing Co-op Party, affiliated to Labour — and John Stonehouse was its London president. British Communists saw it as a vessel through which they could get close to millions of voters, because at that time the Co-op Party had committees all over the country running their Co-op stores. ‘John saw off the Communists,’ adds Barbara. ‘He despised Communism. How he could be equated with spying for a communist regime is beyond me. I can’t imagine how this ever happened.’ Unfortunately, there is a very good reason why John Stonehouse agreed to spy for the Soviets. It wasn’t ­ideology or conscience.

His was treachery for the grubbiest of ­reasons: money. His Czech handlers were paying him £500 a year — roughly one-third of his MP’s pay — to pass on information which was, in fact, second-rate material usually involving ­nothing more significant than details of minor British foreign policy initiatives in parts of the world such as Africa. John Stonehouse and his wife Barbara. She divorced him while he was still in prison and later married public relations consultant Dennis Flexney-Briscoe Secret service documents in Prague show the Czechs continued to use him because he was obviously ambitious, and they hoped their paid informant would achieve the highest offices. ‘Well, if they were paying him,’ declares Barbara, ‘I don’t know where the money went. It certainly didn’t come my way.’ The Stonehouse story remains a classic tale of greed and ambition, love and betrayal. Friends insist his staged disappearance was the act of a man who went off the rails. Others see it as a typically calculated deception by someone who traded on his charm, and who only faked his own death to escape the Fraud Squad.

Born in Southampton, where his mother was mayor, he was a clever economist who was an MP at 32 and making his way steadily up the political ladder in ministerial posts until Labour lost power in 1970. Suddenly, he found himself back on the backbenches and not even in the Shadow Cabinet. Shorn of his ministerial salary and perks, and of hardly any use to his Czech handlers, Stonehouse set up a series of companies, including one with a share in an investment bank in Bangladesh. He told friends he wanted to ‘make a million in seven years’. But by 1974, in increasingly difficult economic times, his network of 23 separate companies was in ­trouble. Desperately, he borrowed to keep afloat, lying to accountants and deceiving business partners. His adoring secretary and mistress Sheila Buckley always believed in him. Like so many swindlers who inveigle their lovers into their business affairs, Stonehouse made her a director of his companies, in which capacity she signed many legal papers without realising their ­significance. She was later convicted on five charges connected with his frauds and received a two-year suspended sentence.

At first, police thought they'd got Lord Lucan By the time Stonehouse decided the only way out of his difficulties was to disappear, he had debts of more than £800,000 — almost £10 million in today’s money. There was also £600,000 missing from a charitable fund he had set up at the Bangladeshi bank to help victims of devastating floods there. As he plundered his companies and lured in last-minute investors while shipping funds abroad, he was applying for two passports in the names of two dead constituents of his in Walsall — a trick he learned from the thriller The Day Of The Jackal. The final act was the faked death: a business trip to Florida, a swim, and disappearance. Barbara Stonehouse was distraught and put under sedation. Sheila Buckley let it be known that ‘he used to go for long swims by himself’. In the Commons, there was a minute’s silence for the passing of the Honorable Member for Walsall North, while at MI5 they wondered whether the Soviets might have ­spirited their man to the USSR.

Meanwhile, Stonehouse had arrived in Australia via Hawaii, having disguised himself with spectacles and a centre parting, and was shovelling money into new bank accounts as both Joseph Markham and Clive Muldoon — the dead constituents. Using two names, however, was his downfall. A suspicious bank teller spotted he had deposited vast sums under both names. Stonehouse's saga mirrored that of Leonard Rossiter's character in the Fall And Rise Of Reggie Perrin When the police interviewed the good-looking and well-spoken ­Englishman, they at first thought they had found Lord Lucan, who had also vanished in 1974 after the ­family nanny was found dead in their basement, presumably having been mistaken for Lady Lucan. So the Stonehouse trail eventually led back to England and the Old Bailey. In an official note to the Foreign Office, which was read by Harold Wilson in Downing Street, Stonehouse excused himself with these words: ‘My wish was to be released from the incredible ­pressures being put on me, particularly in my business activities and various attempts at blackmail. ‘I considered, clearly wrongly, that the best action I could take was to create a new identity and attempt to live a new life away from these pressures.

I suppose this can be summed up as a brainstorm or a mental breakdown.’ They didn’t see it quite like at the Old Bailey, and in 1976 he was given seven years and sent to Wormwood Scrubs. After three heart attacks in prison, he was released in 1979. Sheila Buckley was waiting for him. They married in 1981 and a year later their son James was born. Stonehouse made a living writing books, including a memoir, Diary Of An Idealist, in which he described being accused of being a spy but certainly didn’t admit to being one. Mrs Stonehouse nursed her husband through ill-health before he died in 1988. These days, living in a four-bedroom detached house, she has reverted to her maiden name of Black, although her son James has kept his surname Stonehouse. Some years after her husband’s death, she said: ‘I feel no attraction whatsoever to be married again. It would be hard to find anyone to match up to John.’ Now aged 63, she has never remarried.

James was just six when his father died, and Sheila has described herself as ‘mother and father to him… it has taken years to nurse him along to cope with the past. 'He hero-worships his father. To him, John is God. We talk about him often. Our boy has learned to live with the truth of what ­happened and he is okay with it.’ Now 28, James is tall like his father, and with a genial manner. ‘I know nothing about my father being a spy,’ he says, ‘and nor does my mother.’ Here, it seems, is another Stonehouse determined to escape from his past. And who, in the circumstances, can blame him?

How MP John Stonehouse's Reggie Perrin-style faked death stunned British politics 40 years ago - Mirror Online News How MP John Stonehouse's Reggie Perrin-style faked death stunned British politics 40 years ago It's 40 years this week since John Stonehouse stunned the nation by faking his death, leaving Miami detectives probing his Reggie Perrin-style disappearance Share Bizarre disappearance: John Stonehouse faked his death and fled to Australia (Photo: Mirrorpix) Share Get daily updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again laterInvalid Email An MP stunned British politics when he left a pile of clothes on a Miami beach leaving authorities to believe he'd either drowned or been eaten by sharks. So convinced were police and peers of his death that a minute's silence was held in Parliament. It's 40 years this week since John Stonehouse's Reggie Perrin-style faked death, reports the Birmingham Mail .

On November 20, 1974, the Member of Parliament for Walsall North took drastic action to free himself from the millstone of debt and spectre of prosecution that weighed heavier with each day But while Florida detectives investigated his demise in Miami, Stonehouse was 10,000 miles away in Australia starting a new life with a new identity. The shamed politician was now Joseph Markham, the deceased husband of a constituent. Stonehouse’s story, peppered with political intrigue and espionage, would grace the pages of any John le Carre novel. It’s even intertwined with the disappearance of Lord Lucan . It was not, however, the inspiration for popular comedy series, The Rise and Fall of Reggie Perrin, starring Leonard Rossite r. Author David Nobbs’ tale of a Sunshine Desserts salesman who faked his demise was written five months before the Stonehouse saga began. Stonehouse, who died in 1988 aged 62, may have been lacking in moral fibre, but there’s no doubting his old-fashioned front.

Back in Blighty: John Stonehouse, left, is accompanied by Scotland Yard's DCS Ken Etheridge on his return to England after faking his death (Photo: Mirrorpix) When police Down Under arrested him on Christmas Eve, 1974, and discovered that news of his 'death' were somewhat premature, he penned a letter of explanation to the Foreign Office . “My wish was to be released from the incredible ­pressures being put on me, particularly in my business activities and various attempts at blackmail,” Stonehouse wrote. “I considered, clearly wrongly, that the best action I could take was to create a new identity and attempt to live a new life away from these pressures. I suppose this can be summed up as a brainstorm or a mental breakdown.” More than anything else, Stonehouse’s story is a lesson in the perils of unbridled ambition: a man destroyed by his thirst to become rich. Loyalty to Queen and country certainly didn’t stand in his way. In 1980, a Czech defector alleged the rogue former MP had been a spy, but Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher decided against action.

The son of a former Southampton mayoress, he first sprung to political prominence in 1957 when elected as Labour Co-operative MP for Wednesbury. Stonehouse’s rise through the political ranks was rapid and in 1968 he joined the cabinet as Postmaster General. But storm clouds were gathering. Labour lost the 1970 general election and Stonehouse was not picked for Harold Wilson’s shadow cabinet. In an attempt to boost his dwindling income, he set-up a network of 24 companies that withered as the economy dried up. He borrowed, lied to accountants and deceived business partners. The deceit wasn’t confined to Stonehouse’s business life. He had also began an affair with secretary Sheila Buckley behind wife Barbara’s back. Interest: The Birmingham Post reports on a John Stonehouse-inspired exhibition in 2002 (Photo: Birmingham Post) It is believed Stonehouse, who was at the centre of a Department of Trade and Industry probe into dodgy dealings – decided to fake his death in 1973. By the time he took the plunge, Stonehouse had accrued debts of £800,000 – almost £10 million in today’s money.

Sporting a pair of glasses to mask his appearance, the 'deceased' politician travelled from Florida to Hawaii to Oz. But greed again proved his downfall. While Down Under, Stonehouse adopted TWO identities – Joseph Markham and another dead constituent, Clive Muldoon, and opened accounts in both bogus names. Suspicious bank staff alerted police who initially thought they had found Lord Lucan: the earl also vanished in 1974 after the family nanny was found dead. Cops staked out Stonehouse’s luxury pad from December 10 before storming the building on Christmas Eve. The news of his double life was met with disbelief by a British press that had carried obituaries to the MP. The BBC reported: “The re-emergence of the MP, once tipped as a future Labour leader, on the other side of the world has stunned Parliament and his colleagues at Westminster. “A Whitehall source said his future in Parliament was uncertain but it is too early in the proceedings to comment on whether he could be expelled.” Following Stonehouse’s arrest, it was six long months before he was sent back to Britain, the extradition process hindered by a string of failed asylum bids.

Copycat crime: Stonehouse's disappearance had many similarities to the fake demise of fictional Reginald Perrin played by Leonard Rossiter (Photo: BBC) At the Old Bailey in April, 1976, the eagerly-awaited trial on charges of fraud, theft, forgery, conspiracy to defraud, causing a false police investigation and wasting police time began. It was to last 68 days and Stonehouse conducted his own defence. The old charm didn’t work on the jury – he was convicted and sentenced to seven years, while his mistress Sheila Buckley received a two-year suspended sentence for her part in the deception. Stonehouse finally agreed to resign as an MP on August 28 after being sent to Wormwood Scrubs . He endured three heart attacks while behind bars, but put a brave face on his ordeal, writing: “The opportunity to sleep nine hours a night and really relax has been extremely good for me. I ask you to disabuse yourself of any idea that prison is harmful.” His wife divorced him in 1978, but he and Sheila went on to marry three years later and have one son, James.

Stonehouse went on to write three novels and made several TV appearances, mostly in connection with discussing his disappearance. He also spent much of his retirement working for a number a charities. It was a belated selfless act from a man ruined by a selfish obsession with fame and fortune. Like us on Facebook Most Read Most Recent Most Read Most Recent BBC ON THIS DAY | 14 | 1979: Disgraced ex-MP released from jail 1979: Disgraced ex-MP released from jail John Stonehouse, the former government minister who faked his own death, has been freed from prison. Mr Stonehouse was led out of jail an hour before other prisoners due for release on Tuesday morning. He was allowed to leave earlier on health grounds as he is still recovering from open heart surgery and has had three heart attacks during his time in prison. Mr Stonehouse was released on bail after serving three years of a seven-year term for theft, fraud and deception. The charges related to a string of failed fraudulent businesses set up by the ex-Walsall MP before his disappearance in 1974. He stood trial in 1976 after being arrested in Australia.

No family reunion Last year his first application for parole was turned down. Several suitcases and boxes containing Mr Stonehouse's personal possessions and documents were loaded into a car which arrived to collect him at dawn. But there was no family reunion outside the prison gates. Both his mother and his former secretary, Sheila Buckley, who was with him when he was arrested in Australia, stayed away. Mr Stonehouse sprinted towards the waiting car with his head covered by a jacket and hid from photographers by laying down on the back seat. It is believed Mr Stonehouse plans to write a book about his experiences. In Context The John Stonehouse case captured the public imagination because it mirrored a popular 70s television character, Reginald Perrin, who also faked his own death. As well as leaving behind a pile of clothes on a Miami beach to fake his drowning, John Stonehouse also left behind a wife and a daughter. He re-emerged in Melbourne, Australia with a new identity and his former secretary, Sheila Buckley. He was captured by Australian police on Christmas eve 1974. They wrongly believed they had caught the missing Lord Lucan who was wanted in England for murder. John Stonehouse and Sheila Buckley married in 1981.

He died in 1988 aged 62. Search ON THIS DAY by date

Question: Who was the secretary and mistress of disgraced MP John Stonehouse?
Answer: Sheila Buckley